


May You Know It.

by pdot1123



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28317795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pdot1123/pseuds/pdot1123
Summary: A short story about the fall of a mighty ecumenopolis- A city planet.





	May You Know It.

It was a dark day for The Republic.  
Our Senate was divided into two factions, the Magistratus and the Militum. In the middle were the various neutral planets caught between them and their supporters. The two parties fought over who should be the President. On one side, some backwater bureaucrat from some lesser world, on the other some barbaric admiral of one of the many Republic fleets.

The capital of The Republic, the ecumenopolis of Mestros, was initially the home of the fiercest fighting. Millions of angry plebians brawling in the streets, some shooting, some stabbing, most beating each other to death. This anarchy lasted for a few months until everyone exhausted themselves on looting, rioting, and street warfare. We of the capital believed this would be the end of the affairs. Oh, what fools we were!

Turmoil in the rest of the galaxy had ramped up during these months. Skirmishes between planetary fleets, Admirals abandoning their posts to join their favored party, planets pledging themselves to candidates. The Senate had all but dissolved. They abandoned the Great Hill on Mestros, where they had met for millennia prior, returning to their constituents. Only a few brave men and women remained in the city-world, so few I could count them on half of my 20 fingers! These few's presences did little to alleviate what was to come.

Open and (relatively) organized hostilities began after a Militum Senator had been crushed by a fighter ship in a crash. The pilot, the Senator, and three bystanders were killed. The head of The Militum declared that the Magistratus had actually meant this as an "attack," the head of The Magistratus declared that everyone in the Militum could go fuck themselves, and the Republic became engulfed in war.

The first handful of years were relatively stable, as far as being caught in the middle of a civil war go. Mestros' few remaining senators kept some semblance of hierarchy on the planet, while the Planetary Watch kept the law in check (with a healthy dose of bribery interspersed, of course). Food supplies continued to reach the massive city, which couldn't supply itself, due to it being mostly metal and containing one-hundred-and-a-half-billion people. I remember these days as though they were yesterday, yet one-hundred-and-forty-something years have passed.

As the civil war dragged into the double digits and a return to the status quo seemed unlikely, the food shipments stopped. Well, to say they stopped is incorrect. Rather, they couldn't reach Mestros.  
It is unclear who began this trend, but the two factions began raiding the trade caravans which headed to the Jewel of the Galaxy. Occasionally, a shipment of food would arrive, but it was usually stragglers, barely enough to feed a district, let alone 479 of them. Things only get worse.

Pirates had been a scourge upon the galaxy since the beginning of time itself. Since the Republic controlled the galaxy, the many bands of pirates, deserters, and misfits plagued the Republic since its inception. Usually, they toured the fringes, hiding in frontier colonies, running dens of scum and villainy in secret. On occasion, some bandit king or audacious crime boss would raid a world in the middle-rim of the galaxy, where fortifications were many, but so too were the number of credits to be pillaged. It was a pipe dream at best to even think of *reaching* the core, let alone organizing crime in it.

So imagine what fool had managed to convince nearly four-hundred-thousand pirates they could run amok on the mightiest metropolis the galaxy had ever know.

Then imagine what fool failed to realize what was happening until the pirates had already gotten past the AA defenses, and onto the ground.

I cannot describe the sheer horrors these pirates wrought upon Mestros. My parents, myself, and my twenty-four siblings were strong enough and numerous enough to defend ourselves, which is why I have the misfortune of recounting this event, but few were as lucky as we were. They embowled, crucified, castrated, maimed, and massacred nearly every district. They gunned down everyone who tried to resist them, going so far as to bombard whole districts into molten ash if they couldn't take them, my own family home being decimated in one of these bombings. The remaining government was wholly eradicated. The Senate Hall on the Great Hill being razed even to the foundations, and most of the surrounding structures being unrecognizable unless you knew what was there before. The pirates stole many ancient treasures and relics of historical significance, as well as untold amounts of money, before fleeing to whatever shithole system they came from.

The few surviving members of the planet watch rallied local militias, fighting over the scraps of Mestros. I fought under one of these warlords in my youth, and have the burn scars to prove it. Powers faded, alliances were forged and broken. Heroes rose and fell, and past glories were destroyed. The Spire, which was the heart of Galactic communication was blown up in some battle or another, cutting Mestros off from the rest of the galaxy, and most likely breaking apart the galaxy as a whole.

The Republic's capital of Mestros is but a city of ash and rust, clinging to its past as a city of marble and gold.  
Today, the warlords have stopped fighting over control of the planet, but rather, over the few remaining stockpiles of food. I have spent a great deal of effort repairing one of the Spire's backup transceivers, and hope to upload this to the Holonet, whether that is in vain or not is yet to be seen.

To those wondering: "What has happened to the Jewel of our Republic?" It is gone. Mestros has starved to death.  
May you know it. May you know it.


End file.
